Ah, comic strangulation! (Photo of Claire deBruyn and Camryn Chew by Nancy Caldwell)
For a long time, there is virtually nothing entertaining in this production of the comedy Amphitruo by the ancient Roman writer Plautus (254-184 BC). Then, in a kind of miracle, it gets very funny — and more or less stays that way. [Read more…]
Stephanie Morin Robert has a couple of tricks she’d like to show you.
I watched this show online but, when it ended, I clapped anyway. Stephanie Morin Robert’s autobiographical solo is about growing up with a glass eye — and turning that perceived vulnerability into a superpower. Formally, Blindside is taut and inventive. Directing her own monologue, Robert keeps shifting the frame. When it starts, we see her off to one side, speaking into a camera; the projected image of her face takes up most of the screen. Then we see her without this device as the camera views her full body in a straightforward recording of her performance. And she flips into dance sequences: “You didn’t think the dance section would happen just once, did you?” The material combines vulnerability and resilience, with wit forming the bridge between the two. We hear about her violent parents — “For some, throwing a microwave across the kitchen seems like a good way to cope” — and about the chance encounter at summer camp that allowed her to fully access her defiance. Once she has passed that point, she pushes audience members’ potential squeamishness, daring us not to embrace her reality. This gets a bit repetitive, so I could have done with a little less of it, but it does contain a jaw-dropping “puppet” sequence. Blindside is worth watching.
Vancouver Fringe Festival online. Available until September 19. Vancouver Fringe Festival tickets.
Photo of S.E. Grummett by Kenton Doupe
Yay trans identity! Yay queer idenity! Yay polymorphous perversity! Yay … squid sex? Sure! Yay squid sex! In this playful solo show, which they wrote and perform, S.E. Grummett explores gender through a clown character named Grumms. Grumms uses Barbie and Ken as props in a lesson on normative dating. (Barbie and Ken do so much gender-themed work in Fringe shows they could retire on the royalties.) Then Grumms finds out that, after slow dancing with a squid, they have developed squid-shaped genitalia. There are advantages: a hole, plus a lot of tentacles. Grummett is a charismatic performer, Grumms an innocent, low-status clown and, in its inventive use of an overhead projector, the physicality of Something in the Water is satisfying. Dramaturgically, things don’t entirely pay off, though: after the parody of normativity and the release into freer possibilities, Grumms becomes a hero, but the terms of their heroism are loosely defined. (What causes the crisis? Who is Grumms’s antagonist? What’s the showdown?) Something in the Water doesn’t fully sustain itself, but much of it is fun.
Vancouver Fringe Festival at the Revue Stage. Remaining performances: September 15 8:45 p.m., September 18 5:15 p.m., and September 19 at 7:00 p.m. Vancouver Fringe Festival tickets
Jai Djwa spent a long time looking for his new name.
When I heard that this autobiographical solo show was about the performer changing his first name, I thought, “So what?” But Hi, My Name is Jai is engaging for most of its 60 minutes because writer/performer Jai Djwa brings so much richness to it. Djwa’s dad was an ethnically Chinese Indonesian and his mom is a white woman from an East Coast fishing community, so naming and identity are complex for him; at one point on his quest to find a name that fits better than the one he was assigned at birth, Djwa consulted a mystic in Indonesia. In performance, he takes on the personae of folks he interviewed — including queer activist Luke Sissyfag — who changed their names with purpose. And director Raugi Yu keeps things physical, giving Djwa poses and actions. Djwa is an engaging performer, warm and confident. But the script doesn’t have a strong enough structure. There are a couple of potential narrative anchors — Djwa’s trip to Indonesia with his dad, and Djwa’s uncertain relationship with his wife — but neither is strongly developed. When the script left the story of the Indonesian trip and went on a long tangent, it lost me. But I was having a good time until then — and that was most of the show.
Vancouver Fringe Festival at Performance Works. Remaining performances: September 16 8:45, September 18 7:00 and September 19 5:15. Vancouver Fringe Festival tickets.
Jon Paterson and Rod Peter Jr. (Photo: Jon Paterson)
Especially in these tough times, I don’t want to give anybody a bad review, but Iago vs. Hamlet didn’t work for me. The premise of playwright Jayson McDonald’s two-hander is simple: in a mix-up, Iago and Hamlet have rented the same rehearsal space for an hour. After bickering, they agree to share, but it takes too long for the central conflict to emerge: each is plotting to kill the other. Even then, there’s more filler than plot: the two characters run through a list of schemes for killing Hamlet’s father Claudius, for instance, then they run through a list of ways they might commit suicide together. None of this is funny. And playwright McDonald wastes pages in humour-free imitations of Shakespearean dialogue. Problematically, the two actors, Jon Paterson as Iago and Rod Peter Jr. as Hamlet, are in different stylistic worlds. To his credit, Paterson straightforwardly inhabits Iago’s reality, speaking from a place of motivation. Peter’s performance, on the other hand, is artificial. His Hamlet has a British accent and he’s physically mannered. Peter is letting us know that he’s acting, in the mistaken assumption — for me at least — that we’ll find this funny. Playwright McDonald also directed this show; as a director, one of his main duties was to set a consistent stylistic tone.
Vancouver Fringe Festival at the Revue Stage. Remaining performances: September 16 8:45 p.m., September 18 7:00 p.m., and September 19 8:45 p.m. Vancouver Fringe Festival tickets.
